Coach Allison Birkle became the second FHS Aquatics coach to quit due to the negligence and discrimination being endured at FHS. She tried several times to obtain the necessary support for appropriate corrections. Superintendent Nelson did NOT respond. He did not even have someone from HR respond to her. The patterns of discrimination and retaliation run deep. Our kids are the ones who are paying the price.

FUSD needs a complete overhaul if issue's like this one are to be corrected and prevented.

Her letter - 

Dear Superintendent Nelson,

I appreciate your time reading this letter laying out my concerns regarding the Fresno High School Aquatics program. My name is Allison Birkle, and I have been a part of the aquatics program at Fresno High School for 3 years both as a volunteer and paid coach. I am currently the Head Coach for Boys Swim. I am writing because I am disappointed and distraught at Fresno High School’s handling of various situations that affect their own student athletes. My hope is that you will consider the following to help make things right. My main concerns are as follows: 1) Fresno High School Administration’s lack of program oversight to ensure equal access to necessary equipment, financial equity, and lack of support in general; 2) the seemingly intentional gutting of a diverse and accessible community aquatics club serving Fresno High students, oncoming students and the surrounding neighborhoods; 3) the thoughtless and punitive response from Fresno High School’s Administration by eliminating an inclusive program model that supported student athletes of all genders, sexual orientation, race, and socio-economic background, and replacing it with a model that focuses on differences and exclusion.

1) Fresno High School Administration’s lack of program oversight to ensure equal
access to necessary equipment, financial equity, and lack of support in general.

I started as a coach with Fresno High School at the beginning of 2019 as a volunteer dive and swim coach. Soon after, Fresno High hired me as the Boys Head Swim Coach and then as a JV Coach for Girls Water Polo. Jenn Lopez and I were the only female head coaches at Fresno High School that I know of. Jenn shared with me her passion for the students and community and all the goals she had for the aquatics program. We shared big dreams for a program that had barely any working equipment, suits, or gear. Since I began coaching at Fresno High School, Jenn and I have had to fight for those kids to have everything they need, both boys and girls equally. Jenn spent thousands of dollars of her own money to ensure our athletes had everything they needed. Our school budget was first used on touch pads (which are necessary to hold meets at Fresno High) costing over $10,000. At that point, we still needed software and a proper computer, but the school said we had no budget for those items. To even attend other schools’ meets, I had to figure out how to use a Demo version of the necessary program. We did not have working clocks for water polo, also necessary for games. Jenn had to beg for the things we needed. The school often took a stance of, “there’s not much we can do''. If that is true, why do other schools in our district have aquatics programs with all the necessary equipment they need and no pushback from their administration about ensuring their aquatics programs are taken care of?

2) The seemingly intentional gutting of a diverse and accessible community aquatics club serving Fresno High School students, oncoming students, and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Before I started at Fresno High as a coach, I worked in a nonprofit that served youth from relatively tough neighborhoods through after-school programs. I found that most kids and especially teens need spaces that provide consistency, security, and love. I wanted to coach with Jenn not just because I love aquatic sports but because of the vision she was working towards. Jenn centers kids and families that are often overlooked and ignored in our society and especially in the world of aquatics. Fresno High’s student demographic does not have the same access to aquatics clubs that students in Clovis or even other schools in our district (like Bullard) does. A lot of my time as a swim and water polo coach involved teaching high school athletes how to swim, a skill which many students at other aquatics programs already have. Teaching students how to swim was exhausting but so fulfilling to watch these young people learn a life skill and feel incredibly empowered. Jenn fought for the pool deck to be a place that was not only a space to learn a sport but a place where student athletes were fully accepted. We purchased breakfasts for morning practice (2 to 3 times a week), Jenn paid an Olympic water polo goalie to talk to and inspire the athletes, we tutored students on the deck before practice, and Jenn mentors many of them. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was Jenn’s idea to go to Costco and purchase food, toilet paper and other necessities for our kids’ families in need. She is a mom-like figure for so many athletes and created what we liked to call a “deck home.” We still have kids visit the deck after leaving or graduating. One young lady, who currently lives in foster care, recently told me the pool deck is one of the only places she feels totally safe and can be herself entirely.

When Jenn started Echo, an aquatics club for Fresno High students, it seemed like our best chance at making Fresno High aquatics competitive and would help us continue to provide support for student athletes all year long. Echo Aquatics allowed Fresno High students and incoming students to join the club for free. Youth and families in the community who wanted to join but could not afford it were offered sponsorship. A majority of kids at Echo this past summer were sponsored. We had swimming lessons, Splashball, water polo, and swim club for kids from every background and many who would never have the opportunity to be a part of an aquatics club because most are too expensive and exclusive. In order to afford to have the club at Fresno High and to serve a lower socio-economic demographic, Jenn needed a way to offset costs. Club Swim, with the hope of later adding Masters Swim and Water Aerobics, was added to help alleviate the financial burden.

Jenn was told by Fresno High’s Principal Linda Laettner that she could not have a Masters Swim program because it interfered with another masters swim club at the school and would create community conflict. The club she was referring to serves only adults who are not reflective of Fresno High’s student body demographics. We found out much later that Linda could not actually block Echo from offering a Masters Swim program but never took the time to clear it up. In fact, Echo faced endless difficulty from Fresno High’s administration for reasons I still do not understand. They created obstacles for the swim club and water aerobics schedule to prioritize another club that does not even serve the students the pool belongs to. Is a school and its facilities not for the students who attend? Why was Fresno High so intent on making it difficult for a club that would enrich its students and provide lifelong skills to youth and families in the community? Learning to swim could save a child’s life. Providing an accessible swim and water polo club in the Fresno High neighborhood can raise up athletes who are much more competitive. These resources can help open the door to playing in college and provide scholarships for low-income students.

3) The thoughtless and punitive response from Fresno High School’s Administration eliminating an inclusive program model that supported student athletes of all genders, sexual orientation, race, socieo-economic background, and replaced it with a model that focuses on differences and exclusion.

Not only did Fresno High deny support for an aquatics club that would help develop better athletes for their school, it pushed coach Jenn Lopez out too. Jenn was a coach that came back to water polo practice three days after having her baby and devoted endless time and money to an aquatics program that had absolutely nothing. The administration did not accept her request to rescind her resignation and then replaced her with a coach, John Vinuela, that currently has a completely opposite approach to the program she built. After working hard for the last three years to build an inclusive program for all genders, Fresno High’s administration chooses a coach who wants to turn it all backwards. John Vinuela has made it very clear that he prefers and will only accept a gender divided program. During this past water polo season, he did not allow his boys to swim or practice with girls and even threatened them telling them not to sit on the bench with the girls team to support them during games. For this winter’s offseason, he originally told the boys team he would be running a water polo practice for boys only. He also took a stance that during swim and water polo season girls and boys must remain entirely separate. I am incredibly disgusted by the sentiment that girls bring boys down. As a woman, I am no stranger to sexist behavior and thought processes. But it disturbs me that a school like Fresno High intentionally chose to replace a coach like Jenn, who fought for diversity and inclusiveness in aquatics with an incredibly divisive and problematic character like John Vinuela.

In August, before the replacement, I sent Dan Ascanio, Fresno High’s AD a letter with my concerns about John Vinuela. There had been many concerning incidents with Vinuela but one particular incident led me to write to Dan confidentially. This past summer, a group of student athletes participated in a water polo tournament in Santa Cruz. Vineula was in charge of driving a group of kids there and back. After the tournament, the plan was to visit the beach. Vinuela decided he wanted to leave early to watch a wrestling match on TV and left two athletes with another coach. Those two athletes did not fit in the car of the other coach who stayed so they had to cram in. I don’t need to explain how dangerous and negligent this behavior is. When Fresno High’s administration was confronted with this incredibly irresponsible and reckless behavior, they made the argument that it was done off of school time. If this is the argument the administration is going to make, why then are teachers fired for behavior observed on their social media? If a teacher is abusive to a child outside of school time, is this acceptable to Fresno Unified? My assumption is no. I have communicated clearly with the school why I am worried about John Vinuela. When I followed up with Dan regarding accountability for John Vinuela, he shared they were unable to disclose anything. It seems the letter I sent was not concerning enough because John was essentially given more power by being offered another head coach position.

To conclude, I am writing this letter because I believe in justice and fairness. I believe that the kids and families at Fresno High School and its surrounding community deserve an aquatics program that is equitable in every way, from its coaches to its equipment. I am disappointed at the treatment of Coach Jenn when she has done everything in her power to create a space that makes kids empowered and safe. Jenn fights to give those kids everything, even to her own financial, emotional, and physical detriment. So why have we had to fight a school that is also supposed to have the best interest of its students in mind? I am disgusted that an inclusive program model has been replaced with one that focuses on differences and excludes based on gender. Jenn and I were two of the only female head coaches at Fresno High School. Sadly, I have observed a school that cares more about what benefits its adults in power than it does the students it should be dedicated to serving. I have witnessed selfish and complicit behavior from Fresno High School’s administration that cannot be ignored. I ask you to consider Fresno Unified’s values and hope you will help make this right, not for me or for Coach Jenn, but for our FUSD students and families.

Sincerely,
Coach Allison Birkle